The role teachers play in international education through cooperative learning

Over recent years, international education has become one of the main goals of our society since they have been proved to increase school effectiveness, but also research about this has identified several motivational factors that can influence students’ development. Yet, how to motivate learners in the classroom continues to be one of the most puzzling problems confronting the teacher. Therefore, teachers must foster both confidence and high achievement in their students. Thus, a central issue in this essay is that teachers have a primary responsibility in education to help students cultivate personal qualities of motivation that can give them resources for developing aspiration and independent learning for achieving goals. Although it is difficult to monitor directly, children’s efforts and involvement with educational tasks have significant effects on their progress and it is important for teachers to find ways of facilitating this. Hence, it is of big importance to consider and promote cooperation between class members in order to build group cohesiveness and so provide an international environment within the group. Furthermore, the role teachers play in their pupils throughout this cooperative learning should become the key to education’ internationalisation since this seems to accelerate the process of globalisation and leads us to the development of intercultural skills. The essay presented focuses on the need for internationalisation within teachers and examines how they contribute to the students’ adaptation to this new globalised society we live in

La influencia del contexto de alfabetización y el autoconcepto en el aprendizaje del inglés como lengua extranjera

El proceso de internacionalización de la educación que hoy vivimos está convirtiendo el co-nocimiento de un segundo idioma en uno de los principales objetivos de la sociedad actual como requisito indispensable. Este estudio se enmarca dentro de una investigación más am-plia en la que se compararán dos contextos: uno, España, en el que se estudian centros bilin-gües y no bilingües ubicados en ciudades en las que se habla una sola lengua oficial y centros en los que se hablan dos lenguas oficiales; y, el otro Grecia. Aquí nos centramos en explicar las diferencias observadas en el aprendizaje del inglés a partir del contexto no escolar y el autoconcepto del alumno. Los 186 alumnos que participaron en el estudio están matricula-dos en la E.S.O. en dos centros que completaron dos instrumentos validados en el trabajo. Los resultados obtenidos indican que las diferencias de habilidad apreciadas en el aprendiza-je del inglés pueden ser en parte explicadas desde variables no escolares y desde el propio comportamiento del alumno mientras aprende en el aula. Además plantean la necesidad de ampliar el modelo de enseñanza del inglés incorporado elementos contextuales externos al aula.The internationalization of education that we live today is becoming the knowledge of a second language in one of the main objectives of the present society as a prerequisite. This study is part of a broader research that will compare two contexts: first, Spain, in which bi-lingual and non-bilingual centers located in cities are studied in which one official language and is spoken centers in which speak both official languages; and the other Greece. We focus on trying to explain the observed differences in learning English from non-school context and student self-concept. The 186 students who participated in the study are enrolled in compulsory Secondary Education in one state and bilingual and one voluntary aided school. They completed two instruments whose validity and reliability has been determined in this work. The results indicate that differences in ability appreciated learning English can be part-ly explained from non-school variables and from the behavior of the student while learning in the classroom. Also raise the need to extend the model of teaching English outside the classroom incorporated contextual elements